Friday, May 23, 2008

Dark Desires After Dusk

A seductive beauty he can never have, yet can't resist... Cade of the rage demons will stop at nothing to atone for the one wrong that will haunt him forever. But once he secures the key to his redemption, the halfling Holly Ashwin, Cade finds that the woman he thought he could use for his own ends and then forget haunts him as much as his past.

A tormented warrior she should fear, but can't deny... Raised as a human, Holly Ashwin never knew that some frightening legends are real until she encounters a brutal demon who inexplicably guards her like a treasure. Thrust into a sensual new world of myth and power, with him as her protector, she begins to crave the demon’s wicked touch.

Surrender to dark desires... Yet just when he earns Holly’s trust, will Cade be forced to betray the only woman who can sate his wildest needs—and claim his heart?

This was another enjoyable read from Kresley Cole's IAD series. Going into this book I was a little wary. I knew that the heroine had OCD. I struggled heavily with the condition for six years, roughly (and still have my quirks). So reading a book about an OCD heroine worried me for two reasons:

1) I worried if Cole would do a good job portraying an OCD character.2) I worried if Cole would do too good a job of portraying an OCD character. As I'm always concerned about something triggering my compulsions.

Suffice it to say, Holly came off very realistic to me. After I got past her fixation on multiples of three, which bothered me at first because I like symmetry and even numbers/multiples of two, it was smooth reading and a fun ride with no nasty side effects on my side.

Holly is a halfling: Half human half Valkyrie. She was raised by humans totally unaware of her Valkyrie lineage until she is kidnapped by demons with the intent to impregnate her with their demon seed. See, Holly is the Vessel. She is coveted because impregnating her will guarantee a child of either pure evil or pure good, depending on the father. Of course, the bad guys want her because they want that evil child, and the same could be said for the good guys wanting a purely good child. And Cade wants her, not only because he's positive that she's his mate, Holly is also the key to him righting his long ago wrong.

Holly is thrust into this new world where her Valkyrie side, powers and strength are new to her. She is without her medication and traveling with a Demon that throws all of her careful planning and meticulous living out of whack. She is attracted to him and scared of that attraction. Plus she has claws and fangs that sprang overnight. In short, she is on a thin string ready to snap at any moment. She handles it well.

It was really great having a Demon hero. Cole has given us Vampires and Lykae's before so it was nice to have a deviation from that with a sexy Demon. Cade was responsible for his brother Rhydstrom losing his place at the throne of the Woede Demons. His goal since then has been to get Rhyd his rightful place back. But he never thought that the only way to do that would be to give up the mate he has waited 900 years for.

Once Cade turns Holly over to The Groot, this nasty dude who wants the "Vessel" and holds the key to killing Omort the Deathless--the demon who stole Rhyd's kingdom--the power of the kingdom will be relinquished back to Rhyd. Only one problem: Cade is not so sure that he will be able to turn his mate over after finally finding her.

Dark Desires After Dusk was a good read for me. The characterization was great on Holly's part. There was no miraculous freedom from her OCD. She just learned how to deal with it better. Cade was a great hero with horns. He is totally action where Holly is think first, act second. They were very yin and yang so to speak, and made quite the duo. Cole did a great job with this book, it's one of my favorite's of the bunch now. Grade A-.

You liked this book better than me, Brie :D I'm not saying that it wasn't good, but I would probably give it only a B+ (which is pretty high already). I don't know, I think something was missing for it to be in the A range.

Hi Brie, You have been a busy little bee havn't you, reading so many books! I have this on my TBR list but I havn't started it yet because I want to savor it slowly, LOL. I know it will be a while before I get my IAD fix. Who knows when the next book is coming out. I am glad to see you really liked this one. Since we seem to have similar taste I am sure I will too!